Recently, “Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture” published an article bearing the somewhat dry and intimidating title “The Implications of Past-Tense Syntax in the Book of Mormon." However, the implications of the evidence and analysis provided by linguist Stanford Carmack are anything but dry. They’re profoundly thought-provoking and, indeed, spectacular.
"In the middle of the 16th century," Carmack observes, there was a brief "surge in the use of the auxiliary verb 'did' to express the affirmative past tense in English, as in 'Moroni did arrive with his army at the land of Bountiful' (Alma 52:18)." The 1829 manuscript of the Book of Mormon contains nearly 2,000 instances of this particular verbal form, using it 27 percent of the time in past-tense contexts. By contrast, the 1611 King James Bible employs the form less than 2 percent of the time, Carmack wrote in the abstract.
Read Full Article »